Rouhani Holds the Key

By Omid Memarian

Sept. 24, 2013

As part of its diplomatic charm offensive before this week’s United Nations General Assembly, Iran has released a dozen political prisoners, including my lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh. At the same time, President Hassan Rouhani published an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing his case for resolution of the nuclear crisis. In contrast to his hard-line and often unsophisticated predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Rouhani is rolling out a coherent and well-planned public campaign.

Sotoudeh, one of the best known freed political prisoners, was my lawyer in 2005 and helped free me and many others from Iran’s notorious Evin prison. But she paid a very high price for her courage, and was eventually locked up herself for more than three years. Her release did not have any of the conventional bureaucratic hallmarks. She was whisked out of her cell, put in a car, driven home and only told, “You are free.”

The authorities did not give Nasrin any papers to make her release permanent or official; she has no guarantees that she won’t be put back behind bars. Other freed political prisoners are in the same situation, while still many hundreds more remain incarcerated. Many of them are journalists, activists and reformist politicians who have done nothing more than press for reforms and justice for Iranian people.

Many of Iran’s political prisoners were jailed for airing critical opinions of the previous Iranian government’s domestic and foreign policies — critiques of Ahmadinejad’s policies similar to the arguments Rouhani is now making with such success in his speeches in Iran and in the American media.

Iranian journalists toil under severe censorship, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are restricted, and Iranians generally have no free access to information. As a journalist persecuted for my writings in Iran, I find it remarkable that Rouhani can take advantage of press freedom in America, publishing op-eds and making media appearances while at the same time keeping prominent Iranian journalists imprisoned. When I hear Rouhani speaking of Iranian economic malaise, inflation, Ahmadinejad’s wrongheaded foreign policy, the need for reducing international tensions and so forth, I am reminded of my journalist friends behind bars whose lives have been destroyed.

One of those journalists is Bahman Ahmadi Amouee, who warned eight years ago of the devastating impact of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies. He was detained and prosecuted after the 2009 election and remains in prison.

Ahmad Zeidabadi is another prominent journalist and opinion leader who criticized Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy. He argued that the Iranian government should put the country’s national interests first when formulating policy toward Israel and not base it on extremist ideology. He specifically noted that Iran should not be “more Palestinian than Palestinians themselves” as regards to the Middle East peace negotiations. He has been in prison since June 2009.

Rouhani was elected thanks to the support of millions of voters who trusted his promises to release political prisoners and implement a foreign policy that would end the sanctions. These same voters protested in the aftermath of the 2009 election, asking, “Where is my vote?” and receiving their response from the state through violence and killings. Two presidential candidates from the 2009 election, Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, together with Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, remain under house arrest without any judicial or legal process.

Today Rouhani is advocating flexibility and friendship in foreign policy, saying he wants to restore Iranians’ basic rights, reach a nuclear deal and remove the economic sanctions — moving away from Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric as fast as he can. He wants to represent a different image of Iran to the world, but the continued house arrest of journalists and opposition leaders should cast a long shadow over his trip to New York.

Iran has many brave rights advocates who should never have been arrested. The United States and other countries should welcome these releases, but also demand an end to the “revolving door” of prisoners. If these releases were meant to end the repression of a people who have suffered so many injustices, it would be a positive step. But many doubt the sincerity of the gesture, especially given the ad hoc manner in which the prisoners were freed. Instead, this has given rise in Iran to the belief that political prisoners are being treated like hostages whose release is timed with political machinations ahead of the U.N. General Assembly.

China, Myanmar and other countries who repress peaceful critics have a long history of releasing prisoners for political credit ahead of summits and U.N. meetings to whitewash their human rights records and score points on the international stage. It is time for the United States and world leaders to stop rewarding this cynical practice and demand genuine reforms. The Iranian people want to see the release of all political prisoners as a natural outcome of their vote for Rouhani.

An Iranian diplomat told me recently that Rouhani has lived in the West, knows its culture and respects democratic values. If this is true, then the Iranian president should put his values into action and ensure freedom of expression for his own people.

Omid Memarian is an Iranian journalist who was awarded Human Rights Watch’s “Defender” award in 2005.